Chapter 8 - Accident Investigations, Reporting, & Risk Assessments Flashcards
Why should accidents and incidents be reported, tracked, and investigated?
To ensure the prevention of it in the future.
How are accident reports used in safety management?
Accident reports would be an important input for the ongoing safety training.
What is risk assessment?
Risk assessment is the procedure that helps in identifying the potential hazards and analyze what might be the consequence of the specific hazards.
Safety risk assessment is a methodological procedure for identifying, assessing and preventing hazards by control measures.
It demands the detailed examination of the processes, equipment and work environment for the safety management.
What is a risk assessment observation sheet?
Risk assessment observation sheet is a highly effective safety management tool that breaks risk assessment into different stages in a matrix and specifies the identified hazards and also the people who are in risk.
Why are work related accidents reported?
- It is compulsory to report and also record work related accidents that causes death, serious injuries, industrial diseases and dangerous occurrences.
- Moreover, it is a legal requirement as well to report any accident that causes a worker to abstain from work for a minimum of three days.
Which OSHA standards cover regulations for accident reporting and record keeping?
- OSHA standards 1960.29 and 1904.39 are covering regulations ** for accident reporting**.
- 1960.70 and 1904.7 covers the regulations of record keeping.
How to report an accident?
Follow the 5W & H rule.
What is the 5W & H rule?
5W = What, Why, When, Where, Who
H = How (Process)
Define “Hazard”.
Act, Source and Situation that might lead to injury, ill health, death, damage to property or a combination of all these.
Define “Risk”.
Combination of the probability and severity of a hazardous or harmful event happening. Risk can be quantified as the product of probability of occurrence of an event and severity of the damage or destruction resulting from that event.
Define “Chance”.
It is a measure of how likely is an accident that may happen.
Define “Severity”.
It is a measure of seriousness of the injury due to the accident.
Define “Control Measures”.
It is the steps that is applied to remove the hazard or reduce the risk
What are the three risk assessment steps? Explain them and provide examples.
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Identify the hazards in a workplace.
Physical, Chemical, Health, Human factor
e.g. Heavy noise in spinning mills -
Assess the risks of the hazards identified.
Based on the measure of likelihood, seriousness and how often the workers are exposed, risks are classified as low, medium and high
e.g. High risk of health hazard for an operator and medium risk for a manager -
Applying the control measures that reduce the risks.
Attempts are made to eliminate the hazard. If not possible explore the possibility of an alternate method or applying precautions to reduce the effects of the risk.
e.g.: Worker is provided with an earmuff and the manager is asked to use a PPE ear plug
while entering the area
What is the risk assessment matrix / risk matrix?
It is a very valuable tool that helps an industry to prioritize the actions and the level of attention that it requires. It evaluates the probability and severity of a specific action that is expected to occur.
